The invention relates generally to transactional business processes and more particularly to a system and method for identifying and representing information and decision flow requirements in a transactional business system.
A business process is a set of logically related activities performed to achieve a business outcome or goal. In general, a business process determines the nature of work within a business system and is typically defined by a set of workflows designed to achieve a goal of a business system. Examples of typical business systems may include factories, supply chains, administrative processes or functional processes such as underwriting, servicing and originations. Examples of business processes within business systems may include determining a risk class for a life insurance application, calculating the amount to be paid on an insurance claim, determining how to allocate a payment to different customer accounts or providing a quote for leasing equipment or vehicles.
In business systems such as those mentioned above, businesses typically spend significant time and resources gathering data, collating it and organizing it for the purpose of making business process decisions. Generally, the amount of information that is actually used for making business process decisions is much less and often different than the volume of information collected. However, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, information is considered as an important organizational resource. A well-managed business process should effectively manage its information flow requirements through the business system. In general, a business process that is analyzed with an ‘information-oriented’ view enables better organizational efficiency or effectiveness. Therefore, there is a need for an efficient system and method for identifying and representing information and decision flow requirements within a transactional business system.